Quotes About Humanity

When you say that Christ did not die for all men, you are abusing a weakness of men, who at once apply this exception to themselves, and this encourages despair, instead of turning them away from it to encourage hope.

Do you want it always to cost me the blood of my humanity while you do not even shed a tear?

Man is neither angel nor brute, and the unfortunate thing is that he who would act the angel acts the brute.

For in fact what is man in nature? A Nothing in comparison with the Infinite, an All in comparison with the Nothing, a mean between nothing and everything.

Nie betrieben die Menschen das Böse so umfassend und freudig wie aus religiöser Überzeugung.

The knowledge of God without that of man's misery causes pride. The knowledge of man's misery without that of God causes despair. The knowledge of Jesus Christ is the middle course, because in Him we find both God and our misery.

Man is neither angel nor beast, and it is unfortunately the case that anyone trying to act the angel acts the beast.

All men naturally hate each other. We have used concupiscence as best we can to make it serve the common good, but this is mere sham and a false image of charity, for essentially it is just hate.

Porque, al fin, ¿qué es el hombre en la naturaleza? Una nada frente al infinito, un todo frente a la nada, un medio entre nada y todo. Infinitamente alejado de comprender los extremos, el fin de las cosas y su principio están para él invenciblemente ocultos en un secreto impenetrable, igualmente incapaz de ver la nada de donde ha salido y el infinito donde es absorbido.

Însa în cazul în care universul l-ar strivi, omul ar fi înca mai nobil decât ceea ce-l ucide; pentru ca el stie ca moare; iar avantajul pe care universul îl are asupra lui, acest univers nu-l cunoaste.

Omul este asa de mare, încât maretia lui reiese si din aceea ca el se stie nenorocit.

When a natural discourse paints a passion or an effect, one feels within oneself the truth of what one reads, which was there before, although one did not know it. Hence one is inclined to love him who makes us feel it, for he has not shown us his own riches, but ours.

The church has had as much difficulty in proving that Jesus was man, against those who denied it, as in proving that he was God, and both were equally evident.

This is not the home of truth; it wanders unrecognized among men.

Can anything be more ridiculous than that a man should have the right to kill me because he lives on the other side of the sea, and because his ruler has a quarrel with mine, though I have none with him.

Nous sommes de bien petites mécaniques égarées par les infinis.

Man must not be allowed to believe that he is equal either to animals or to angels, nor to be unaware of either, but he must know both.

Voilà notre état véritable. C'est ce qui resserre nos connaissances en de certaines bornes que nous ne pas sons pas, incapables de savoir tout, et d'ignorer tout absolument.

Christianity is strange: it requires human beings to recognize that they are vile and even abominable.

It is of dangerous consequence to represent to man how near he is to the level of beasts, without showing him at the same time his greatness. It is likewise dangerous to let him see his greatness without his meanness. It is more dangerous yet to leave him ignorant of either; but very beneficial that he should be made sensible of both.

Man is but a reed, the weakest in nature, but he is a thinking reed.

Man's greatness come from knowing he wretched: a tree does not know it is wretched. (21)

But for this mystery [of original sin], the most incomprehensible of all, we remain incomprehensible to ourselves.

Let us imagine a number of men in chains, and all condemned to death, where some are slaughtered each day in the sight of the others, and those who remain see their own fate in that of their fellows, and wait their turn, looking at each other sorrowfully and without hope. It is an image of the condition of men.